It started in November 2013 in Umeå, Sweden. I was very inspired by the RepRap Project at the time, and a friend had the idea. A few days later, I sketched this in a notebook:
The handwriting says "Suspend print pen in the ceiling!!". And that was really all I wanted to add to the already fabulous RepRap Project.
RepRap had managed to do with a 3d printer what previously was limited to software and biology, namely self-replication. The logic was that a valuable machine that can self-replicate will increase in numbers exponentially, almost by law of nature.
And it worked, it really worked. RepRap emerged as a new category of manufacturing machines that quickly spread around in the millions.
So Hangprinter became a cable driven RepRap with simple anchors. The early prototypes printed some large objects, and generated a lot of interest. But they didn't generate similar value as other RepRaps. Hangprinter versions 0, 1, 2, and 3 were all too impractical for general widespread use.
The Hangprinter Project aims to be valuable, so we're working on solving the problems that made previous versions so hard to use.
- tobben 👷